Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When A Parent Doesn't Like You

Transcript

When A Parent Doesn't Like You · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everyone, and welcome to the doctors.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show. Today we're going to be talking
• 0:10
  about a sad topic of what if a parent doesn't like you?
• 0:15
  And this is something that really dramatically impacts
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  people's self-esteem as you could imagine.
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  And many people think that they are kind of alone and in this
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  sort of feeling or a loan in how dramatically it impacts them
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  Beyond childhood. But unfortunately this is a
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  fairly Common underlying reason that people struggle and
• 0:38
  interpersonal relationships and with self-acceptance and
• 0:42
  self-compassion. So we will dive into that.
• 0:45
  Right after I asked you to subscribe the next episode, will
• 0:49
  be a subscriber episode. The previous one was, what about
• 0:52
  when your wife feels overwhelmed?
• 0:54
  And I'm sure the next one, we're probably up to some something
• 0:57
  about sex, so hold on to your hats.
• 1:00
  So we will have some subscriber episode about some aspect of sex
• 1:04
  next Whatever occurs to me that the majority of my clients are
• 1:07
  wrestling with other time. So back to the topic at hand
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  right now. So there are there are a lot of
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  ways that a parent can show that they don't like a child and
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  their if a parent is was not raised very well themselves and
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  they come from a difficult upbringing and they did not
• 1:26
  particularly feel liked, then it is pretty hard for them to
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  convey that they do like a child honestly like the The odds were
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  against you feeling loved if your parent grew up with a
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  dearth of love and affection themselves.
• 1:42
  So what happened sometimes though?
• 1:44
  Which is an unfortunate situation is so let's say that
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  you have a parent. The parent did come from a beaut
• 1:49
  from an abusive situation or you've met your grandparents.
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  You can concede that they are true assholes and you understand
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  why your parent was in a bad situation but then your parent
• 2:00
  really likes your sibling, you know, like that sucks and
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  there's like a A lot of people in that situation where yeah,
• 2:08
  they could understand that the parent went through some shit,
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  but it would be a lot easier to understand that the parent is
• 2:13
  fucked up. If the parent didn't like, but
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  their sibling on a pedestal and obviously show the capacity for
• 2:19
  love vis-à-vis, The Sibling. So, you know, and and we can
• 2:23
  talk about why that is, you know, why they can prefer the
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  sibling to you, but this is another situation, so it's not
• 2:31
  only. When a parent doesn't like you
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  that is Something that people struggle with.
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  It's when a parent likes, you less than another sibling and
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  that can be particularly, you know, heartbreaking.
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  Because at least if the parent act like an asshole to
• 2:48
  everybody, then you can somehow conclude that.
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  Well you know who's the common denominator but it's a situation
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  where you are. The least liked all of the
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  siblings that is particularly hurtful to children.
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  Now, what are reasons that a parent could act like this,
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  Besides that, they were treated like this themselves.
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  Well, there could be temperament mismatch.
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  You could be like loud, and they're very quiet, quiet and
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  they're very loud. You could remind them of
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  themselves, you could remind them of a parent that they
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  didn't. Like, you could make choices
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  that they find philosophically abhorrent, you could reject
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  their religion, you could reject some key aspect of what they
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  think life is supposed to be. Basically, any reason.
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  Usually, I talk about this from the perspective of I'm talking
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  directly to parents Young children.
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  I have multiple podcasts on what to do when your kid is annoying.
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  What if you have a favorite child?
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  All that, so it's like that. But you got to think about it
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  from the perspective of what if I'm talking to your parent, like
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  all those same reasons, what a plot.
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  So there is one good thing to do is to literally figure out
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  literally, why doesn't my parent like me?
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  Like, I've always felt like they don't really like me and these
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  are the things I've told myself. But if I try to get real
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  granular and really objective, why really is it, you know, like
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  some Sometimes your reasoning is not accurate.
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  Sometimes if you take a step back and you try to look at it
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  like you've always thought, let's say that your mother
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  preferred your brother to you because he's the one that's good
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  at school. But if you look at it more
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  objectively, as an adult, you may be like, oh like I'm a woman
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  and my mother hates women. Well, I should I don't have a
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  shot. You know why does she hate
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  women? Well, because she was, you know,
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  just heard she hates her own mother.
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  Oh oh, okay. That could make sense.
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  So this is some of lot of what people do.
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  Therapy is understand why really they had the role that they had.
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  And if they were the scapegoated or the least preferred child, we
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  try to understand. I mean, this has nothing to do
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  with forgiveness. These things are completely
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  orthogonal, but if you can understand why a parent did not
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  like you or why you triggered them, it can help you to take a
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  more objective view of the situation and increase your self
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  compassion. Like, boy, I really didn't have
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  a shot. I feel bad for myself, you know,
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  coming into that situation. Like there was no No way, you
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  know that my mother was going to like me etcetera, Etc.
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  Other reasons, are that a parent struggling with depression,
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  parents struggling with bad anxiety, with trauma with
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  substance abuse. A lot of different reasons for a
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  parent, not being able to bond with you.
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  So that's another way to think about it.
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  You may think they just didn't like you, but maybe they were
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  unable to bond with you at a critical moment.
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  Now if their life was extremely stressful, especially when you
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  were a baby then you may have gotten off on the wrong foot
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  through obviously Goes without saying no fault of your own, you
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  know? And so like for example if your
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  mother had postpartum depression when you were a baby and it was
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  never treated and it just turned into a recurring, you know,
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  beads on a string of depressive episodes throughout her whole
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  life then. Yeah.
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  Like she didn't really have a shot to bond with you.
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  You remind her of the first original postpartum depression
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  and and that's what happened. So there could be Myriad
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  infinite reasons that a parent is not like a child all of which
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  are terribly. Unfair and upsetting.
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  And, you know that that's terrible.
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  You know, when you need to cultivate self compassion for
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  being the child, that wasn't like this is a really a really
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  shitty kind of lot in life to be the child that was not preferred
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  or a child. That was not liked at all and
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  that this needs generally to be processed and individual work.
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  You know, this is a big issue and there are many many
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  Sequences of this, the first is that we look at our parents for
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  how to think about the world, if your parent doesn't like you
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  then you assume your unlikable. You don't think when you're a
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  kid, you barely think like this as an adult.
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  You're going to start trying and maybe, if you're in therapy or
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  already trying to understand why, you know, from an objective
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  level. Like this adult, that was your
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  apparent had trouble bonding to the baby that was you, but you
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  certainly not going to think like that when you're a kid, you
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  think boy. I'm Must be unlovable.
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  You don't articulate it. But it seeps into how you view
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  yourself if even your mother doesn't love you or your father
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  even a parent doesn't love you. That's supposed to love you.
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  Do you count out of their body or they adopt you or whatever
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  they they picked to have you around and or you know they they
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  should have liked you. You know, all of the all of the
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  Ducks were in a row for them to like you you were their child,
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  people tend to like their Everything was set up like that
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  but then they didn't, well then you might, you conclude as a kid
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  with no further information about human psychology, that you
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  just must be the issue. You just must be such an
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  unlikable, unlovable unappealing sort of person that even a
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  parent, couldn't like you. So of course, what is this due
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  to your self-esteem and the book mean mother's by Peg?
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  Street talks about this vis-à-vis, the mother
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  relationship, but there are, you know, other relationships, like
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  toxic parents by Susan. Forward and other related books
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  on my dr. Samantha Rodman.com reading list
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  that's my other professional side for, just my practice and
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  there's a reading list on there. So million books, especially on
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  adult children of dysfunctional families, right?
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  And this is certainly makes it a dysfunctional family.
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  So if you're like, now we just has like normal family but my
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  mom doesn't like me. No, no, you're not, you're an
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  adult child of a dysfunctional family and having that rubric
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  under which to Everything that goes on can really help you.
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  You know, can really help people to understand really what
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  they're dealing with here because it's fairly
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  dysfunctional. Not to like your child, you
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  know. Like if you're someone who's
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  listening you're like ah fuck. I don't like my child's that
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  make me dysfunctional. Yeah.
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  Like not like bad. Not I'm judging you like.
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  Yeah. This is bad.
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  You know, you gotta like your kid on some level.
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  And as I say and I encourage you in the podcast directed toward,
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  the parents struggling with dislike of a child just don't
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  show Them try to follow my advice in the podcast about what
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  do I do? If I don't like my kid or my kid
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  is annoying and go to therapy because nine times out of 10, if
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  you find it hard to like your kid, it's because you didn't
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  feel like by a parent. So it's the the biggest, the
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  most easy template for you. The most obvious path is how to
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  act toward a kid that you don't like because you learn that real
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  good from growing up. How you grew up not feeling like
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  you don't really know how to The child that you're with.
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  Now, you're going to save. What about the sibling
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  situation? The Sibling situation is Vis
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  different based on every sibling.
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  Usually a parent that hates themselves, loves The Sibling,
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  who's the least liked them. So, therefore a mother with
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  self-esteem issues will hate the daughter-in-law of the Sun.
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  And, you know, if the, if it's a mother who has two daughters,
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  the one who looks less, like her, the one who acts less like
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  her is going to be the prized one and the other one is more
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  like her is going to be the one that She doesn't like if you're
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  dealing with a narcissistic parent that they're going to
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  like the one that's just like them or the one that give gets
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  the most accolades and the one that go, you know, through whom
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  they reap the most, you know, audience engagement that, they
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  can go to you know, wherever they go and say, oh my son, got
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  into college at this place and everybody will be like, oh my
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  God, he's so smart. And then meanwhile, if you were
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  the one, who didn't go to college at such a lofty
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  institution, then the Friends who is narcissistic doesn't have
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  much use for you. So it's the fact that you are
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  parent like to Sibling more than you in no way.
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  Means anything about you being a bad person or unlovable.
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  It means that the dysfunctional entity that unfortunately was
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  your parent was more linked and got more from the relationship
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  with a sibling. Then from the one with you,
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  there was a more there, you were more triggering for whatever.
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  Reason to your parent, then your sibling was but when you're a
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  kid you don't see it like that. You just say my brother was
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  lovable and I'm not. So then what are the later in
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  life consequences? Will you could imagine it might
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  be difficult and you would be right to imagine that.
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  It would be difficult to get into Intimate Relationships when
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  you feel that you're unlovable. Because if you even your parent,
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  could didn't seem to love you much.
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  Then how are you going to think that a spouse does?
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  So these are the people that get involved with spouses, that
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  don't really seem that into them that reject them.
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  And Reject, their overtures of affection, if they even have the
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  self-esteem to make any or that overall don't love them as much
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  as the person that previously on love child, loves the spouse.
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  So it's an imbalance, it's the same imbalance of Yearning that
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  the child experienced that the adult child experienced back in
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  their upbringing when they were yearning for affirmation
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  approval acceptance and love from a parent.
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  And the parent did not give it. And in fact, responded with
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  criticism with ignoring, with contempt, with disgust with
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  boredom etc, etc. If you're listening to this,
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  you're like, oh my God. Sometimes I'm bored talking to
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  my child, but I think I love them.
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  Everybody's bored talking their child.
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  Sometimes, it's not what I'm talking about.
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  I'm talking about, when literally, a parent could not be
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  bothered to ever engage with you and new very, very little about
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  your life and was contemptuous about what they did know, if you
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  have Experiences, then you'll understand that description and
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  hopefully be able to contrast it with with whatever you are
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  doing. Of course, if you're like holy
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  shit, that one sounds like me the ladder.
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  Then again, there's not shame in that.
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  There's like, that would be an epiphany moment at which, you
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  would say, I really ought to get into counseling, to deal with
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  the way that I talk to my child, because I fear that I'm
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  replicating, the things that I grew up with unintentionally and
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  I don't want to mess up my child and passed down,
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  intergenerationally, self-esteem issues.
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  And so this would be a very reasonable and admirable,
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  conclusion, if you do recognize yourself in a description, and
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  that goes for all of my podcasts, all my posts or all of
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  anybody's podcasts or anybody's post is, if you do recognize
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  yourself in an unflattering description, there's no shame in
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  that the shame is and then saying, alright, I don't really
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  want to deal with that then, you know, that's not good, but if
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  you ever do recognize yourself in a description that's
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  unflattering or or bad, in some way for a family member,
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  especially child, and you don't Deal with it.
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  That would be the issue if you are like, oh wow!
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  That sounds like me. And now I am going to seek
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  therapy. Then that's very admirable.
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  So, that's to the side. So anyhow.
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  So you would have intimate relationship problems.
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  If you grow up with this, you would have problems with making
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  friends because you never really believed that.
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  They, like, you all that much. Actually, you may have problems
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  on the job, but usually people turn into work horses or people
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  Pleasers and the real issues come Um, in the intimate
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  relationship where they're constantly yearning for
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  affirmation approval and acceptance from somebody, in
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  much, the same way that they yearn for it from their parent
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  when they were growing up. And because they never got it
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  from the parent. When they growing up, it's very
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  familiar to be in this constant yearning state where you never
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  exactly feel like the other person thinks about you were
• 14:27
  cares about you as much as you think about them or care about
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  them. So you end up being the
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  Workhorse of the relationship. Get forward, being the engine
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  and never really seeing that that person would put out the
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  same level of effort or, you know, real real engagement in
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  the relationship that you do. Sometimes they would if you just
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  stopped compulsively being the engine of the relationship.
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  But sometimes they wouldn't because you're literally drawn
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  to somebody who likes you less than you like them, because this
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  is a familiar pattern to you from childhood.
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  Given the type of upbringing that I'm describing.
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  So if you do recognize yourself and these concomitant issues
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  that I'm talking about therapy, I mean you know not to beat a
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  dead horse but this is a podcast by a therapist.
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  Like most of the thing I'm going to say as an answer it's going
• 15:21
  to be why don't you try to work it out in therapy, therapies
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  made for this. This is what therapy is for is
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  to help people go through their dysfunctional early life
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  experiences. Direct relationships to what is
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  going on, now, in the Here and Now understand how these
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  patterns started. And then to think of and try out
• 15:45
  new ways of engaging that could potentially allow you to
• 15:49
  experience new sorts of phenomena, like, for example, a
• 15:53
  relationship or somebody really likes you as much as you like
• 15:56
  them. Doesn't that sound good?
• 15:57
  But you can't get there yet because you're still hampered
• 16:01
  probably by unprocessed on. Peeved family of origin issues.
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  Specifically having a parent that acted like they didn't
• 16:08
  really like you, which is majorly traumatic.
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  So if you were to work through that stuff and then experiment
• 16:16
  with alternate ways of being, by the way, if you grew up with a
• 16:19
  parent who didn't seem to like you it's real uncomfortable to
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  be around somebody who likes you.
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  Like if you you're like the person who goes on a date with
• 16:27
  somebody who's like really into you and you're like, hmm.
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  Now I really didn't like their shirt so like I don't think
• 16:32
  that's gonna work. No it didn't.
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  Nothing to do with their shirt. They like you too much the
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  cardinal sin because if even your parents didn't like you and
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  you've not processed and worked through it, then it's not going
• 16:44
  to make sense to you in anybody likes you because if even your
• 16:47
  parents didn't like you, you therefore concluded just to
• 16:50
  recap that you're really not the sort of person that's very
• 16:53
  likable. And if somebody likes you, you
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  really genuinely doubt their judgment and they lose their
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  they you estimate them as stupider.
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  Because they like you and as less viable and attractive and
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  appealing much like that Groucho, Marx, quote, that I
• 17:13
  feel like I've quoted a few times in my podcast, if you
• 17:15
  don't want to be part of any club, who would have you for a
• 17:17
  member, this is really endemic to the experience of people who
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  had these sort of experiences of feeling really unloved.
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  And you may say, no no, my mother.
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  She loved me. She loved me.
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  It's just like, you know, we have like a difficult
• 17:33
  relationship. Well, yeah, but if you had a
• 17:36
  million dollars to say, whether your mother liked you, when you
• 17:39
  were a kid, if you got a million dollars for the right answer,
• 17:41
  would you say that she liked you?
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  Because if you would not, if you would think that, then you would
• 17:46
  forfeit the money then because it's not true.
• 17:49
  If God himself, came down and said, if you tell the truth on
• 17:52
  this one, you get a million dollars.
• 17:53
  Did your mother, like you when you were little, what would you
• 17:56
  say? Because if you would say no,
• 17:58
  then you're in the bucket of people for whom this podcast
• 18:00
  supplies, and this isn't everybody, but you'll know it.
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  If it's you and if it is you then you should probably stop
• 18:08
  minimizing the impact this had on you as a kid because it's a
• 18:12
  tremendous impact. Think right now about how you
• 18:17
  would feel Hearing in 20 years, that your kids said, yeah, I was
• 18:20
  always the one that you didn't like if that would break your
• 18:23
  heart, then have that same type of self compassion for your old
• 18:26
  childhood self and commit to working through this and to
• 18:31
  living a different sort of life when you can learn to build.
• 18:34
  Up the self-esteem that you should have had in the first
• 18:37
  place. Had you been in, you know, born
• 18:39
  into more auspicious circumstances.
• 18:41
  All right. So hopefully this resonated with
• 18:43
  whoever it was meant to resonate with And subscribe if you like
• 18:48
  these podcasts and the next one will be about sex.
• 18:51
  I promise I just have to comb through my my mind for what.
• 18:56
  That next special sex topic is going to be on subscription and
• 19:00
  I'll talk to everybody soon.